Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Neo-Assyrian Period, 935 BCE - 610 BCE was characterized by these phases: consolidation; expansion; peak; and demise.

Viewed elementally, the Neo-Assyrian period consists of three phases of Assyrian politics: consolidation from 935 BCE-745 BCE, especially under Assurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III's successive reigns; expansion from 744 BCE-705 BCE, especially under Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II; and the peak of Assyria under Sennacherib and Assurnasirpal from 704 BCE until its demise in 612 BCE. Within these over-encompassing phases were falls, reorganizations and victories. These tides ebbed a bit between ever-higher peaks until a coalition of Babylonians, Medes and others sacked Assyria in 612 BCE.

The Neo-Assyrian period began with innovative tactical shifts: a standing army; trained chariotry and cavalry; battering-ram siege techniques; psychological warfare in the form of cruelty and terrorism; and deportation of conquered peoples. However, it was under Assurnasirpal II's reign from 883 BCE that these tactics were fully employed and Assyrian hegemony was truly restored to its Middle Assyrian borders. However, after his successor Shalmaneser III, Assyria went into a brief decline until Tiglath-Pileser III restored Assyria and the Sargonid Dynasty expanded Assyria until its quick demise.

Babylonia During the Early Iron Age

The Neo-Assyrian era was difficult for Babylonia. Political disarray arose as groups vied for power; economic weakness ensued from loss of access to trade routes; and territorial hegemony proved elusive due to the newly arrived Arameans and Chaldeans who autonomously dominated the countryside. Assyrians campaigned in Babylonia against tribal groups and sometimes the Babylonian king. Babylonia's overall weakness was dotted with ephemeral moments of power. Assyrian king Shalmaneser III regarded the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I as an equal; Shalmaneser's throne at Kalhu shows him grasping the Babylonian king's hand as an equal. The latter helped Shalmaneser III's sucessor Shamshi-Adad V ascend the throne and forced him tribute upon him.

Babylon was not a suzerain for very long however, and the very same Shamshi-Adad V who ascended with Babylonian assistance later deported two successive Babylonian kings. Amidst the chaos in Babylonia, the cities were isolated areas where traditional political and cultural life was maintained. Among these were Babylon, Borsippa, Nippur, Sippar and Uruk. There was some scribal activity; cults kept worshipping deities; and old structures and city-walls were sometimes restored. As isolated points where the Babylonian king held power, these cities were given special privileges including freedom from taxation, forced labor and service, arrest and property seizure. Read more about Babylonia during the early Iron Age and Neo-Assyrian Era.

Elam to the east; Urartu to the north

Elam regularly supported Babylonian and Chaldean opposition to Assyria. Southern marshes linked Babylonia and Elam, and provided a getaway through which traditional armies could not pursue rebels. Fighting continued to erupt between Assyria and Elam until Elam's final betrayal: supporting Assyrian king Assurbanipal brother in the civil war from 652 BCE-648 BCE. After defeating his brother, Assurbanipal invaded Elam and utterly ruined it with destruction, emptying of royal tombs, salting of the land and wholesale deportations to Samaria. The Elamite king's head was brought to Nineveh, where it was hung on a tree in Assurbanipal's personal garden.

To Assyria's north in eastern Anatolia was Urartu. It was crucial in the early 1st millennium and at one point reigned supreme, but sources are incredibly scant and its chronology is culled from Assyrian sources. Urartu was founded by Sarduri I during the reign of Shalmaneser III and was centered at Lake Van. His successors campaigned incessantly in all directions, and when Assyria began to expand the two states were in direct conflict. Tiglath-Pileser III campaigned against Urartu, but it was Sargon II who sacked the religious center Musasir and left Urartu a weak ghost of its former self until the Persians took its last breath.

Consolidation phase (934 BCE-745 BCE)

From 935 BCE-745 BCE, and especially during the successive reigns of Assurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III from 883 BCE-824 BCE, Assyria tightened its grip on the Upper Mesopotamian territories first conquered during the Middle Assyrian Period. Rather than expand Assyrian borders beyond, the goal was to simply restore Assyria to its former glory and subject neighboring states to Assyrian dominance and heavy tribute. Neo-Assyrian kings were part of a tradition of a centuries-old monarchic institution of conquest, continuing an unbroken like of kings (supposedly of the same family) since ~1500 BCE.

This awareness of prior kings' expansions, sometimes in the same areas tackled by Neo-Assyrian kings, is noted in Ashur-dan II and Tukulti-Ninurta II's inscriptions. Ashur-dan II initiated tactical shifts which were followed by later kings: a standing army; new siege techniques; psychological warfare; trained chariotry and cavalry; and deportation of captured peoples. However, campaigns of individual kings were not always great wars of conquest, but often warlike marches to reconfirm dominance over areas regarded as Assyrian. Traditions continued from the Middle Assyrian Period right through the Neo-Assyrian Period.

Assyria's consolidation began in 935 BCE when Assyrian king Ashur-dan II began using a standing army, trained chariotry and cavalry, battering-ram siege techniques, psychological warfare and deportation of conquered peoples. The conquered peoples were used to settle new Assyrian cities, man the Assyrian infantry or serve as slave labor for construction projects.

However, despite early campaigns within Middle Assyrian boundaries, it was not until Assnurnsirpal II (880 BCE-859 BCE) and Shalmaneser III (858 BCE-824 BCE) that Assyria fully re-exerted its hegemony over its Middle Assyrian territory and had totally restored its boundaries. Within these boundaries was considered true Assyria and the rest of the Near East had to obey but was not considered part of Assyria itself.

However, after Shalmaneser II the state went into a brief decline. Central authority weakened in Shalmaneser III's old age, and the entire state suffered. Starting in 832 BCE, a local governor named Dayan-Assur began to openly carry out his own campaigns. By 827 BCE-823 BCE the princes had begun to fight for succession and a rebellion broke out in the Assyrian heartland. Other governors began to assert their own authority, acting and campaigning independently though they nominally acknowledged the Assyrian king.

Expansion begins, 745 BCE-823 BCE

The Assyrian empire expanded to directly govern territory from the Arab-Persian Gulf to Commagene in Turkey by 705 BCE and until the Assyrian regime's 610 BCE collapse. Tiglath-Pileser III began the Assyrian Empire. He made several reforms to create a true empire: the land was divided into smaller, more easily controlled province; he assigned eunuchs to positions of authority, those removing issues inheritance of posts and placing himself in sole control of assignments; and he expanded the territory. The expansion of territory was not just to exact tribute as in Neo-Assyria's consolidation phase, but was actually meant to increase the breadth of the Assyrian empire.

Assyrian control gradually intensified until reaching its height after 704 BCE under the Sargonid Dynasty initiated by Sargon II and highlighted by Sennacherib and Assurbanipal. Assyria came to dominate the entire Fertile Crescent (including Egypt, temporarily) and control terminal points of the Syrian desert's caravan routes. Rulers of several oases were subject allies of Assyria, and the powerful kingdoms of Urartu (later destroyed by Assyria), Phrygia (later Lydia) and Elam maintained relations with Assyria. Incorporated territories remained under their existing ruler, now viewed as an Assyrian governor. However, Assyria unravelled quickly after Assurbanipal and met its demise in 612 BCE.

Aramization

Pioneered by Hayam Tadmor, the notion of Aramization is the dilution of the god Ashur, and is indicative of Assyria's pending collapse. Assyrian dialect for religious purposes, Babylonain for official documents, then beginning in 8th CENT BCE particularly Aramaic. Aramaic became the language of administration, and not Akkadian cuneiform. The lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire went from Akkadian to Aramaic in the Middle Assyrian Period. When Assyria absorbed the Habur, they also absorbed Aramaic. Since Aramaic is much easier to learn, the Assyrian empire underwent Aramaization.

The focus on Ashur melted away, as the larger world of Aramaic speakers and participants became the dominant population group of the empire. Aramization is evidenced by Assurbanipal's desire to collect a huge library, a sign that cuneiform is slowly but surely dying out and that the literary background and trdadtion has beocome are fading away. There is a shift over time from when Assyrian is the language of empire to where Aramaic is the language of empire.

Assyria's rise and fall, 704 BCE-612 BCE

From 704 BCE-612 BCE (Sennacherib, Essarhaddon and Ashurbanipal). Greatest heights, with takeover of Egypt, but then knocked out by an alliance of Babylonians and "Miids" indo-european people who moved into central Iran ~1000 BCE or so and allied with Persians to eventually become the Achaemenid empire. The Medes aligned themselves at this point with the Egyptians to knock out the Assyrians.

Demise of Assyria, 626 BCE-612 BCE

Assyria was overthrown in 612 BCE by Babylonians, Medes and Elamites. The Babylonians took over all the southern half of old Assyria and the Medes took over all the northern half. Assyria's weakness and downfall is an example of The Law of Diminishing Return, whereby Assyria began to fall when it overreached and the cost of new conquests outweighed their return. The Assyrians fell back into Haran, which the Assyrians had sacked in 763 BCE and was restored by Sargon II. Haran served for two years as the headquarters for the then–crumbling Assyrian Empire after the fall of its capital Nineveh in 612 BCE.

Neo-Assyrian sources

Earlier Traditions Continued in the Neo-Assyrian Era